Influence of surface and structural properties on the initial release of risperidone from polymeric drug carriers

In this work, implantable drug formulation with risperidone on the basis of poly(L-lactide-co-glycolide) (L-PLGA) and poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) (D,L-PLGA) as drug carries was developed. The influence of surface and structural properties on the initial release of risperidone during the first twenty four hours was determined. In this aim, high-performance liquid chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope and atomic force microscope were used. Significant differences between L-PLGA and D,L-PLGA matrices in all analyzed data were noted. The burst effect was not revealed for any of the studied polymers, however the released drug was almost five times larger for D,L-PLGA matrices. The L-PLGA copolymer revealed a significantly longer average length of the lactidyl and glycolidyl blocks than D,L-PLGA. Moreover, various characters of surface for analyzed matrices were shown, i.e. in case of L-PLGA the surface was porous and in case of D,L-PLGA it was nonporous. Undoubtedly, there were dependences between risperidone's initial release and the topography and the structure of polymeric matrices. We suppose that the larger drug release for L-PLGA was more associated with surface properties and thus structure of matrices. The obtained results showed the great potential of both polymers and possibility to choose the optimal polymer.